Director Luis Llosa's horror-action thriller told about
a National Geographic crew (led by Jennifer Lopez as director
Terri Flores) in the Amazon Rainforest jungle area, searching for
a lost native tribe (the Shirishama Indians - the "People of
the Mists") to make a documentary.

After rescuing a stranded, mysterious Paraguayan named
Paul Serone (Jon Voight), he promised to lead them to the tribe. But
then they found themselves kidnapped by him - his secret objective
was to track down and capture a monstrous and vicious Giant 40-foot
Anaconda.

In the film's exciting conclusion, Serone was ensnared
by the fearsome giant anaconda after it bit him in the shoulder. After
wrapping its coils around him, constricting itself and breaking some
of his body's bones, it opened its massive jaws to swallow him whole.
His head was seen - from inside the snake's mouth as he was eaten,
head-first. The snake wriggled its body to slowly take him into its
belly.

Swallowed Whole, Then Regurgitated

Afterwards, the snake pursued Terri, and then completely
regurgitated Serone's half-digested body at her feet - he was covered
with digestive juices and was still alive and conscious. Kneeling in
front of Terri, Serone took time to wink with his left eye. The snake
became trapped within a smoke stack which exploded from ignited fuel
drums, catching it on fire. The snake chased Terri again as she struggled
to swim away, but then sank and submerged into the water to douse its
flaming body.

In the film's final scare moment, the anaconda made one
final effort to eat Terri by bursting up through the dock, but she
was rescued when cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube) struck the giant snake
in the head with a pickaxe. As the snake dropped back into the water,
Danny exclaimed: "Bitch!"

The Anaconda's Death

The Ice Storm (1997)

Ang Lee's dramatic film was about the troubled and
dysfunctional lives of two wealthy New Caanan, Connecticut families:
the Carver and the Hood families, during Thanksgiving weekend in
1973, when a freezing rain-storm threatened. [During the sexual revolution
of the 1970s, promiscuous 14 year-old Wendy Hood's (Christina Ricci)
father, Ben (Kevin Kline) was having an affair with neighbor boy
Mikey Carver's (Elijah Wood) mother, Janey (Sigourney Weaver).]

Mikey was tragically electrocuted while out in the devastating
ice-storm. He was admiring the beautiful sight of ice-covered trees
and fields, and was resting on a guard-rail.

It was a freak accident when a sparking and downed electrical
power line, broken by a falling tree, came into contact with the rail.

When Mikey's body was brought back home after being discovered
by the side of the road, Ben Hood simply explained: "He was just
up in Silver Lane. The power line."

Jack Frost (1997)

In this serial killer horror comedy by writer/director
Michael Clooney (not to be confused with the family comedy film Jack
Frost (1998) with Michael Keaton), a serial killer (Scott MacDonald)
about to be executed came back as a giant demented snowman with violent
murderous tendencies, following a prison truck accident.

His body became fused with snow on the ground, as a result
of a collision with a genetic research vehicle and a ruptured tank
of acid. The vengeful, cold-blooded snowman went after victims in the
fictional town of Snowmonton.

In a unique and repulsive misogynistic scene of extremely
bad taste, the snowman melted itself into the hot bath of aspiring
actress Jill Metzner (pre-American Pie Shannon Elizabeth (Fadal)
in her feature film debut). Jill thought that boyfriend Tommy (Darren
O. Campbell) had run her bath-water for her, and thanked him, not realizing
that the "armed and dangerous"
and self-professed "world's most pissed-off snow cone" Jack
Frost had driven an icicle through his chest and forehead, and then melted
himself down into the tub.

After stripping down, Jill entered the tub and began
washing herself. The film hinted at the snowman's sexual intent with
a quick glimpse of his phallic-shaped nose carrot floating in the bath-water.
The snowman then re-formed himself (Jill screamed: "Tommy, no.
Don't put cold water in. Now it's freezing") and attacked/raped
Jill with his carrot-nose.

Jill's Rape/Murder by Jack Frost

She screamed as he pounded her head and body against
the shower wall behind her. She collapsed dead on the floor (with blood
oozing out of her mouth), as Jack Frost joked:

Hmm, Looks like Christmas came a little early this
year. Well, hope it was good for you, honey. (Jack Frost replaced
the carrot into his face) Oh, I must remember to send flowers.
(Laughter)

L.A. Confidential (1997)

In the surprising conclusion of this popular 1950s
style, post-noir crime drama, "Hollywood" vice cop/detective
and Badge of Honor TV show technical advisor Sgt. Jack Vincennes
(Kevin Spacey) was suddenly and shockingly killed at 1:00 am. Like
others, he had been receiving kickbacks for aiding in the arrest
of celebrities.

He was shot point-blank in the heart with a .32 slug
by LAPD Capt. Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) in his kitchen for knowing
too much. The murder revealed the film's ultimate bad guy and mastermind.

Vincennes' last words as he slumped to the floor were: "Rollo
Tomasi" when Smith asked up-close: "Have you a valediction,
boyo?" - after speaking the two words, the life went out of Vincennes'
eyes.

[Note: The metaphoric term Rollo Tomasi was the imaginary
name of a purse snatcher (and uncaught murderer) who had shot Preston
Exley, the father of young, idealistic fellow cop Lieut. Ed Exley
(Guy Pearce). The name denoted the corrupt police chief as the
perfect example of a criminal who was able to escape punishment
and literally get away with murder.]

Afterwards when held at gunpoint by Smith after a brutal
shootout in the Victory Motel, Exley explained the meaning of the term
'Rollo Tomasi' to Smith. Realizing that the chief was a corrupt mastermind
crime boss, he told him: "You're the guy who gets away with it.
Jack knew it, so do I."
When the tables were turned, Exley shot Smith in the back as he walked
away.

Life is Beautiful (1997, It.)
(aka La Vita E Bella)

The Academy Award Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language
Film was this Italian-language film, with two decidedly different
acts (or halves).

The first part of the film was a comedic romance between
a clownish, madcap Jewish Italian waiter named Guido Orefice (Best
Actor Oscar-winner Roberto Begnini) and a pretty schoolteacher named
Dora (Begnini's real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi), with the birth of
a son named Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). The second (told in flashback)
displayed the horrors of a WWII concentration camp where the family
was taken.

To protect his young and innocent son Giosue from the
horrors of the Nazi death camp, Guido (through humor) convinced him
that they were only involved in a role-playing game. He offered his
hidden son points if he would stay quiet and remain undetected. The
first person to acquire 1,000 points would win a real battle tank.

In the film's sad conclusion, a "fable" about
love and sacrifice, Guido convinced his son to remain in a sweatbox
in order to acquire the tank, while he went off to find Dora. He was
seized by guards, hauled away, and shot (off-screen). There was just
a small report of machine-gun fire in an alleyway when he was sacrificially
killed. The young boy thought he had won the game when the camp was
liberated by the Americans riding in tanks, and he was reunited with
his mother.

This adventure-action film was a continuation of the
first film, set four years later, with many of the same characters
from the original 1993 film. There were a number of dramatic deaths,
including these three:

Gadgets expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) suffered a
grisly demise after he was snatched from his jeep and bitten in the
leg, flipped around, pulled in half and ripped apart like taffy, and
then eaten by two Tyrannosaurus Rexs.

Sadistic dinosaur hunter Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare)
also died when he became separated from his group and was swarmed repeatedly
by a pack of small, carnivorous bipedal Compsognathus. A jungle
stream turned red as he was consumed behind a giant tree log.

And long-haired paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke (Thomas
F. Duffy) died when he ran into the jaws of a pursuing Tyrannosaurus behind
a waterfall when trying to avoid a poisonous coral snake that had crawled
down his shirt.

Eddie Carr

Dieter Stark

Dr. Robert Burke

Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven's military-related adventure-action
film was a combination spoof of militarism and a violent science-fiction
saga set in the 23rd century. Gung-ho college graduates who enlisted
and trained in the futuristic Federal Service (military) based on
Earth, explored other regions of the universe, including Klendathu.
It was the homeworld of giant, intelligent, lethal pseudo-arachnid
enemy of insect-inhabitants called "Bugs."

During a lethal attack of swarming green bugs, a few
of the soldiers were decapitated when struck in the head. Another kneeling
down was struck by a wounded and falling bug - and squashed.

One hapless soldier was sucked into a pit, and had half
of his body chewed off - visible when he was pulled out. Johnny Rico
(Casper Van Dien) obliged the lethally-wounded soldier ("Rico,
you know what to do!...Do it, Rico!") by shooting him in the chest
to put him out of his misery.

When the giant, fire-breathing super-insect Mother Bug
attacked, its fiery blast incinerated the right arm of one of the infantry
soldiers. Rico heroically jumped onto the back of the super bug to
ride it, and to enable him to shoot a large hole into its shell with
his machine gun. He held onto the bloody hole he had created and then
dropped a grenade into it, causing a blast that exploded the creature
to oblivion. As he watched from a close distance, he was showered with
bug guts.

The Death of the Mother Bug

BeforeAfter

Titanic (1997)

There were heartbreaking moments after Jack Dawson
(Leonardo DiCaprio) and the love of his life Rose DeWitt Butaker
(Kate Winslet) had survived the luxury liner Titanic's sinking,
and he helped her onto a large floating piece of debris in the icy
cold North Atlantic waters. She complained of the intense cold and
her frozen body, but he encouraged her to not give up:

Don't you do that, don't say your good-byes. Not
yet, do you understand me?....Listen, Rose. You're gonna get out
of here. You're gonna go on and you're gonna make lots of babies,
and you're gonna watch 'em grow. You're gonna die an old... an
old lady warm in her bed. Not here. Not this night. Not like this.
Do you understand me?...Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best
thing that ever happened to me. It brought me to you and I'm thankful
for that, Rose. I'm thankful. You must, you must, you must do me
this honor. You must promise me that you'll survive, that you won't
give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise
me now, Rose, and never let go of that promise.

She promised, and he replied: "Never let go." She
shivered and responded: "I will never let go, Jack. I'll never
let go."

He kissed her hand before his corpse froze of hypothermia
in the cold Atlantic Ocean, although they maintained their hand-grip.

When she was about to be rescued by a boat by summoning
it with a whistle, she let go of Jack's hand, although repeated the
phrase: "I'll never let go. I promise" as he sank underwater
into the frigid waters.

Carver was onboard his Stealth ship, invisible to radar,
with plans to instigate a war between China and the UK, by firing a
missile at Beijing. He believed he would procure exclusive media broadcasting
rights in China for 100 years as a result.

Now with only two minutes left in the countdown, Carver
continued to express confidence about his escape aboard a news helicopter
while the British fleet, advancing rapidly upon the ship, would destroy
evidence of his wrong-doing.

Bond took charge, taunted Carver:

I may have some breaking news for you, Elliot...You
forgot the first rule of mass media, Elliot: Give the people what
they want!

He threw the villain into the activated Sea Drill where
he was chewed up in its mechanism - a victim of his own technology.